- Don’t Let Your Research Questions Go Out Without PICOTS
All the best aims are wearing PICOTS (pronounced “peacoats”). Specification of your PICOTS* is the minimum outerwear required to prevent your research question from being caught in a downpour of questions. Having these details tucked in gets you ready to have a meaningful convers...
- Publishing Null Results
Nearly every scientist has felt the frustration of pouring effort, money and (sometimes) tears into a project only to get null results. The elusive p<0.05 decides whether results get published or not—the oft-mentioned file drawer problem. Others have explained better than I ca...
- How to Protect Your Protected Time
You've just gotten your K award—awesome! 75% of your professional effort is now protected to focus on your research and career development. But wait. What about that class you teach, or those days your department expects you to be in clinic, or the students whose dissertation ...
- Not that Kind of Year: Tales of Year 1 as a New PI
It has been about a year since I started my new position as a principal investigator (PI) at Clinical Department in R1 University. It has been a challenge. Here are my suggestions on surviving the first year, based on areas where I succeed and failed. As always these days, n=me.
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- Best Poster Resources for Trainees
Scientific Poster Roundup
Get your scientific posters on point by visiting these sites for inspiration, how-to guides, and other free resources:
Scientific Posters
Poster design tips, examples and templates from Michael Alley at Penn State, author of The Craft of Sci...
- Using BioVU for Research
BioVU is a biobank of de-identified DNA samples and genetic data to fuel discovery. The “banked” DNA is from routine patient care-associated tests that would otherwise be discarded. The bank was developed as part of The Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research...
- Tips for Conquering the Literature
As a new graduate student, I struggled with identifying the most relevant papers, organizing interesting publications, and remembering why I flagged an article as “Super Important!!!” months after I read it. I’ve synthesized a few tips for taming the task:
1. Identify relevant a...
- How to Use ResearchMatch To Ignite Recruitment
Want to make use of a FREE national recruitment tool to find study participants?
ResearchMatch is a disease-neutral, institution-neutral recruitment resource with over 140,000 volunteers registered and willing to participate in research. ResearchMatch currently serves over 7,0...
- Resilience as a Common Trait in Researchers
This encouraging article in the NY Times reminded me of a question that was asked by an undergraduate student eight years ago. “What is the most important skill for a career in science?” I was a new PI and a panelist for our undergrad career night. I blurted out “resilience," and...
- How to Keep Your Trainee Tables So Your Grants Manager Will Love You
You may not have trainees yet, but when you do, you’ll need to start keeping track of them. At some point, you’ll be asked to serve as a mentor or otherwise be involved with an institutional training grant. NIH has specific characteristics and outcomes they want to know about y...
